A LECTURE 



ON THE 



HAYTIEN REVOLUTIONS; 



SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER 



or 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/lectureonhaytienOOsmit 



A LECTURE 



S; 



SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER 

OF 

T0USSA1NT L'OUVERTUREo 

Delivered at the Stuyvesant Institute, 

(for the benefit of the colored orphan asylum,) 

February 36, 1841. ( 



BY JAMES McCUNE SMITH. M. A., M. D 



Published by the Managers, for the benefit of the Asylum. 



NEW-YORK: 

PRINTED BY DANIEL FANSHAW, 
No. 150 Nassaii-street. 

AND FOR SALE AT THE BOOKSTORES OF THE CITY. 
1841. 



PRELIMINARY NOTE 



The old French Colonial names are retained on the map 
which accompanies the lecture. The portion of the island, west 
of the dotted line, comprised the French Colonial Territory, and 
was the scene of the Revolutions. 

The entire island is at present in possession of the free co- 
lored population, under a republican form of government; the 
President, Jean Pierre Boyer, holding office during life, with 
the privilege of nominating his successor. 

The independence of this Republic has been acknowledged by 
France and Great Britain. Our Great Republic, which was sig- 
nally aided by Haytien soldiers at the Battle of New Orleans, 
pitifully withholds a like acknowledgment of the independence 
of Hayti. 

The population of the island was 935,335 in 1824. 



4 



S 



(ei5« 



LECTURE 



Ladies and Gentlemen, 

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, when two conti- 
nents were shaken by the struggles of physical force against the 
"divine right of kings," and when the civilized world tottered from 
the efforts made against its very foundations ; the attention of the 
revolutionary age was suddenly arrested by a series of events, in 
keeping with the spirit of the times, indeed, yet so entirely unlock- 
ed for, as to excite a feeling of universal and unfeigned astonish- 
ment, not unmingled with exclamations of horror and detestation. 

These events have been variously named, the " Horrors of St. 
Domingo," " The insurrection of Hayti," or "The Haytien Revo- 
lution." > 

That there was something startling in the nature, and fearful in 
the details of that revolution, cannot be denied : but these, so far 
from being reasons for mere exclamations of abhorrence, in reality 
form the strongest inducements to a calm and careful examination 
into the causes which gave rise to the revolution, and of their 
adequacy to produce such a result. For, since revolutions are the 
sudden developments of the slow and scarcely perceptible changes 
wrought by the conservative power, of his destiny over the evils 
which afflict man in his social state, they must therefore present 
to the philanthropist a field, from which he may gather truths 
beneficial to the human race ; and the more extraordinary the 
revolution, the greater should be his care in dispassionately ana- 
lyzing the events which constitute its history. 

With these views, and endeavoring to avoid the whisperings of 
prejudice, I will lay before you, 

1st. An enumeration of the causes which produced the revolu- 
tion of Hayti ; and, 

2ndly. A concise history of the revolution, including a sketch of 
the character of Toussaint L'Ouverture. 



1st. The causes of this Revolution were, its peculiar domestic 
institutions, the topographical structure of the island, and the 
French Revolution. 

The domestic institutions of Hayti* which tended to produce 
the revolution were slavery and caste. 

The nature of slavery in that part of the island is best shown 
from the following statistics : " During the 96 years which prece- 
ded 1774, there were imported into the French territory 800,000 
slaves: of these, there remained only 290,000 in 1774. Of these la\t, 
only 140,000 were Creoles, or natives of the island, i. e. of 650,005 
slaves the whole posterity were 140,000.f In the sixteen years 
between 1774 and 1790, the slave population was nearly doubled, 
not by any favorable change in the treatment of the slaves, but by 
an increased importation from Africa ; for Bryan Edwards states' 
(p. 208) that in the year 1788 alone, 29,506 were imported. 

The slave system in this portion of the island, therefore, destroy- 
ed upwards of 5,000 human beings per annum !.+ 

It is an axiom in political economy that the social condition of* 
any people may be estimated by the ratio of its increase. The 
free population of these United States, for example, increase in the 
ratio of 34 per cent, every ten years ; the state of a people, then, 
who, instead of increasing, actually decrease, must be unnatural in 
the extreme, and a violation of the laws of Him who hath said 
" increase, multiply and replenish the earth." And such was the 
condition of the slaves in the portion of Hayti held by the French. 
They decreased at the rate of 5,000 a year ; and since the laws of 
nature were violated in their condition, we have in this fact a la- 
tent cause for the revolution, for being in her essence conserva- 
tive (of human existence) she was bound to overthrow the system. 

" We were plunged," says one of these slaves, " in the most com- 
plete ignorance ; we had no notion of human society, no idea of 
happiness, no powerful feeling ; our faculties, both physical and 
moral, were so overwhelmed under the load of slavery, that I my- 

* We now speak of the part of the island occupied by the French colonists, 
t " Considerations sur la Colonie de St. Domingue." Published in 1777. 
% This proportion is confirmed by St. Mery, Hist. Polit. et Topographique, vol. 2, 
p. 230, Philadelphia, 1796. 



CASTE. 



self, who am writing this, thought the world finished at the spot 
which bounded my sight, and all my countrymen were as igno- 
rant, and even more so than myself, if that were possible."* 

The 480,000 slaves, ignorant, for the most part, as the indivi- 
dual we have quoted, outnumbered their masters in the proportion 
of seven to one, at the beginning of the revolution. That a majo- 
rity held in thraldom by a minority, when they learn the secret of 
their strength, constitutes an efficient cause for a revolution, is a 
proposition which all history maintains. 

The next " domestic institution which we shall enumerate was 
Caste." 

The local laws of this colony enforced four distinct classes or 
Castes among the inhabitants, separating each by a circumstantial 
minuteness of detail, which was the source of the bitterest and 
least reconcilable hatred. First, were the white planters, or no- 
blesse, who constituted an almost irresponsible oligarchy. Second- 
ly, were the free people of color, many of them planters, all of them 
•intelligent, and some highly educated, being the offspring of the 
first class and the female slaves : this class, possessed of wealth and 
refinement, were the victims of an odious proscription from all the 
rights of citizenship, and were constantly subject to ill treatment 
without means of redress : from this class were selected the trained 
soldiery or militia of the colony, being armed in order to keep the 
slaves in subjection. The third class, or "petit blancs" were, 
says an American writer,! "the scum of European society, who 
had emigrated to the West Indies with vague longings for a better 
condition in life ; but they were held to their original state by the 
attachments of habitual vice, which had grown too strong to be. 
sundered by any feeble effort. They were ignorant and filled 
with strong prejudices, and by being excluded from habitual fel- 
lowship with the class of great proprietors, they were thrown into 
an ambiguous situation, half between the white and negro * * they 
were tyrants to those beneath them * *. The mulatto planters 
scorned the l petit hlancs" 1 for their vices and ignorance, while 

* Quarterly Review, vol. 21, page 458. Baron Vastey wrote the above remarks 
25 years after he had obtained his liberty, 
t History of St. Domingo, by J.Brown,M. D. vol. 1, page 112. Philadelphia, 1837. 



CASTE. 



they were compelled to yield them an outward respect which was 
demanded by the tyranny of caste." " The petit blancs were em- 
ployed in subordinate capacities on the plantations, or were idle 
and dissolute persons in town." 

^"" The Fourth Class were the slaves. 



These distinct classes or castes were the necessary and legiti- 
mate fruit of slavery. Some of them were of comparatively re- 
cent origin. For the 9th article of the " Code Noir " of Louis 
XIV, which became the law of the French colonies in 1685, ex- 
acted the penalty of 2,000 pounds of sugar from any planter living 
in an unlawful state with a female slave ; rendered marriage be- 
tween such parties lawful ; and declared the offspring of such mar- 
riages free, legitimate and affranchised citizens of the colony. In 
case a master persisted in living in a state of concubinage with one 
of his slaves, that slave and the offspring were taken away from 
the master. The 59th article awarded to free colored persons 
"liberty, the pursuits of happiness, and all the rights and privi- 
leges which belonged to all other free subjects" 

During the 77 years which elapsed after 1685, the white and 
free colored population, living under equal laws, conjointly held 
the slaves in subjection. And marriages under the 9th article of the 
" Code Noir" were frequent, as attested by Col. Boyer de Peyreleau 
and Father Labat, in the first edition of his work. And the free 
colored population so rapidly increased as to rival the establish- 
ments of the white planters. But at length the envy of the white 
planters was excited by the rapid increase of the " sang meles" 
or free colored population : and in 1762, only 27 years before the 
Haytien revolution, the first law establishing this one species 
of caste was enacted in the form of a local ordonnance, by the 
Judge of Police at Cape Frangois, who " imposed a fine of 100 
livres on any baker who should sell bread to any person of color 
before the whites had been supplied." 

In 1764, through white creole influence, there was issued from 
Paris a royal ordonnance "prohibiting persons of color from prac- 
ticing medicine or surgery in the colonies," and this law was 



CASTE. 



passed at the time when M. Letheirs, a man of color, was a mem- 
ber of the Institute of France, the highest honor that could be ob- 
tained by a scientific man of that or of any subsequent time. 

In May, 1765, an order was issued, prohibiting notaries from 
employing colored persons as clerks. 

These laws had the effect of driving from employment large 
numbers of colored persons, whose places were supplied by the 
petit blancs. In other words, parents (the planters) took, bread 
out of their own children's mouths and gave it to strangers ; thus 
alienating all filial attachment, and replacing it with a double ha- 
tred, the hatred of children who for bread received a stone, and 
the hatred of outcasts against those petit blancs who supplanted 
them : and at the same time they nestled in their bosoms the ser- 
pent destined to inflict the deadly sting which, when excited, the 
poor inflict upon the rich. 

In 1777 a local law was enforced, preventing free persons of 
color from embarking for France. This law had the double ob- 
ject of cutting off all appeals to the home government, and of 
depriving colored youth of the privileges of education in the 
French universities. Other local laws only imposed a fine on a 
white who struck a colored person, but condemned a colored per- 
son to lose his right hand if he should strike a white ! And no per- 
son whose most distant ancestry could be traced to African origin, 
was freed from the rigid enforcement of these laws. And to such 
an extent had the bitterness of caste obtained, that immediately be- 
fore the revolution, M. Laine, a minister of state and peer of France, 
was excluded from their society by the Creoles of the Cape, because 
his complexion was slightly tinged ! 

When I inform you, ladies and gentlemen, that the free colored 
population, at the period of the revolution, held nearly one fourth 
of the slaves with one third of the soil of the colony; and that 
they equalled the whites in numbers and intelligence, and were 
trained to arms, you will readily grant that the odium of caste un- 
der which they writhed was an efficient cause for the revolution. 

And this cause was peculiar to this colony; for in the British West 
Indies the worst features of caste were abolished by a series of 
laws, the enactment of which began as early as 1762, in the island 



8 MAROONS. 

of Jamaica. In the Portuguese and Spanish colonies no such 
odious regulations existed.* 

II. The topographical structure of the island was the second 
cause enumerated among those which produced the revolution. 
This island is nearly intersected by a lofty range of mountains 
thickly serried with primeval forests, amid which are many strong- 
holds only approachable by narrow and easily defended passes. 

To these lofty recesses, these altars which nature in all ages has 
consecrated to liberty, the more daring among the slaves, like 
other men writhing beneath oppression, fled for refuge ; and having 
made themselves homes amid the wild and rugged haunts which 
they afforded, frequently descended upon the plains of the northern 
and southern parts of the island in marauding expeditions, carry- 
ing on a maroon war during eighty-five years. And at length, in 
1777, after many vain attempts to conquer them, the French and 
Spanish colonists made a treaty with these maroons, granting to 
them liberty and a portion of the territory for their exclusive use.t 

The mountainous regions of the island, therefore, were an ele- 
mentary cause of the revolution, since amid their rugged passes 
slaves had learned that there was such a thing as successful resis- 
tance against their masters, and such a thing also as compelling 
their masters to yield to them their liberty. An interesting light 
is thrown upon the efficiency of this cause by the fact that these 
maroons, who had formed a drain for the more daring and restless 
spirits among the slave population during nearly a century, were 
not only rendered inactive by the above treaty, but bound them- 
selves in the same, to return to their masters all runaway slaves, at 
the rate of twelve dollars per head. Hence, during the thirteen years 
which immediately preceded the revolution, all the wild and dar- 
ing elements which slavery of necessity creates among the en- 
slaved were pent up in the plains, eager, restless and panting for 
liberty and for access to those lofty heights on which experience 
had taught them she made her dwelling. 

The causes I have enumerated, slavery, caste, and the topogra- 

* Caste had no existence even in the Spanish part of Hayti, in which revolution 
was not attended with massacre, 
f Brown, Vol. 1, page 126. 



FIRST REVOLUTION. 



phy of the island, were peculiar to this colony, in which alone 
these three elements concurrently existed. From an extraordinary 
combination of elements, extraordinary results may reasonably be 
expected. Briefly to state the case, there were 30,000 whites, un- 
accustomed to arms, divided among themselves by the hatred re- 
ciprocated by rich and poor, living in the unnatural state of society 
into which slavery had plunged them, placed in opposition to 
504,000 people linked by such chains as oppression forges, having 
among them a considerable number trained to arms : for the laws 
of the colony compelled every free colored male, on attaining his 
21st year, to serve three years in the militia; some of them were 
made officers, and had been trained in the schools which developed 
the genius of Napoleon. 

But slavery, caste, and the mountains, were only predisposing 
causes, and, like a lurking fever, might have lain dormant in the 
colony for a length of time, had not a most extraordinary exciting 
cause, I mean the French Revolution, been added to them at the 
very moment of their concurrence. And this cause is so insepa- 
rably linked with the Haytien Revolution, that it will be necessary 
to weave it into the narrative of the latter. 

HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION OF HAYTI. 

Instead of one, as is usually believed, there were three distinct 
revolutions in the island during the fourteen years which elapsed 
from 1789 to 1803. The first revolution was for the establishment 
of republican principles, and was confined to the whites. The se- 
cond revolution established the emancipation of the slaves. The 
third revolution achieved the independence of the colony from 
the mother country. 

In 1789, one month after the meeting of the National Assembly 
at Paris, there presented themselves at the bar of the assembly, 
eighteen men selected by chicanery from among the wealthy plant- 
ers of Hayti, who claimed for themselves the representation of that 
island. After much objection, six of them were recognized and 
admitted, and they obtained for the Colonial Assembly of Hayti a 
system of representation in which only the white planters consti- 
tuted the basis. When this law was announced in the colony, it 



10 FIRST REVOLUTION. 

roused the wrath of the petit blancs, or poor whites, who having" 
suddenly embraced the republican revolutionary principles, were 
indignant at their exclusion from the representation. " In the first 
transport of their enthusiasm they mounted the new national cock- 
ade, and so deadly was their hatred against the rich proprietors, that 
in many parishes the more respectable people were forced to conceal 
themselves to escape being torn in pieces by the infuriate mob."* 
In Aux Cayes, a respectable inhabitant having answered the re- 
proaches of the mob for his appearing in the streets without the 
revolutionary cockade by some imprudent reflection on the move- 
ment, was immediately shot dead by the rioters, and his head cut 
off, and paraded by the mob : " and the authorities were unable or 
unwilling to interfere against the murder and outrage. (Lacroix.) 
A mob of the same class marched from Cape Francois to Port an 
Prince, to expel from the colony its Attorney-General and Intend- 
ant, both of whom fled. In the meantime these revolters formed 
Liberty Clubs in every village and hamlet, and acted independent- 
ly of the colonial government, whose orders they entirely disregard- 
ed. And they organized themselves into an army, in which every 
officer became at least a general, and every soldier an officer. 

Finding no real object against which they might exercise their 
prowess in arms, they forthwith imagined an insurrection of the 
slaves, and marched forth from the Cape, 3,000 strong, in search of 
servile insurgents, but found none. After a fruitless march, they re- 
turned to the camp with the loss of one man, wounded by himself. t 
During this, the first revolution, the free people of color and the 
slaves were perfectly quiet. And in this revolution there 
was accomplished, before the eyes of the slaves, the entire over- 
throw of their masters, the planters. And there was enacted be- 
fore them a scene in which the few whom they feared and respect- 
ed, suffered entire defeat, with an infliction upon them of cruel 
barbarity by the many whom they despised : for the slaves had 
affixed the cognomen of petit blancs, in ridicule, upon the poor 
white population. 

♦Brown, vol. 1, page 136. 

t The guides of this expedition were slaves ; how far they profited by the hint 
was subsequently shown, for the same guides became leaders in the servile insurrec- 
tion nearly two years afterwards ! 



VINCENT OJE. 11 

This revolution occurred in 1789 and the early part of 1790. 
The petit blancs, by refusing to obey the orders of the colonial 
government, and by holding at St. Marks an assembly indepen- 
dent of the established laws of the colony, became, in fact, rebels. 
Being successful against the white planters, they began to heap 
injury and violence upon the free colored population, who were 
compelled by the inefficiency of the protection afforded by the 
lawful government, to take measures to protect themselves. 

The colonial government being void and powerless, the free co- 
lored people had a right to defend themselves against the rebellious 
violence of the petit blancs. 

They took up arms and remained in considerable numbers un- 
der the command of the governor at Cape Francois. 

At the same time when they remained in arms on the side of the 
lawful government, and in self-defence, they sought by peaceable 
means to obtain their rights as men. This attempt exasperated the 
petit blancs not only against the people of color, but against those 
supposed to be friendly to their inalienable rights. At Porte au 
Prince, M. Codere, on suspicion of being favorable to the interests 
of the colored people, was torn from the bosom of his family, be- 
headed, and his head paraded in civic triumph by the petit blancs. 
At Cape Francois, Lacomb, a man of color, being found with a pe- 
tition for equal rights upon his person, was immediately hung by 
the same party.* 

Their peaceable measures having been thus indignantly and bar- 
barously rejected, a very few of the people of color had recourse to 
arms. On the 23rd October, 1790, a year after the commencement 
of the republican rebellion, Vincent Oje, a man of color, having 
arrived from France, landed near his mother's estate at the Cape, 
(Francois) and was immediately joined by 300 colored men in arms. 
He shortly captured two dragoons, bearers of dispatches concern- 
ing his own capture. " I might put you to death," said he, ad- 
dressing them, " but I have pity on your youth ; and I offer you a 
safe passport to the Cape on condition that you carry these two 
letters thither." These letters were addressed to the orovernor-arene- 
ral, Count Penier, demanding that he should immediately put into 

•The petition began, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 



12 MURDER OF VINCENT OJE. 

practice that decree of the French Assembly, which, March 28th, 
1790, declared that " every person of the age of twenty-five and 
upwards, possessing property, or having resided two years in the 
colony, should be permitted to vote in the formation of the colonial 
assembly." 

These letters were addressed to the governor, who, supported by 
the united forces of the planters and free colored people, had re- 
cently compelled the revolutionary assembly of St. Marks to em- 
bark for France. On the reception of these letters, the governor 
did not act; but the assembly of the Cape, independently of him, 
and without his concurrence, sent a force of 600 men against Oje, 
by whom they were furiously driven back. A larger force com- 
pelled Oje to retreat into the Spanish territory, the governor of 
which gave up him and his lieutenant to the demand of the afore- 
mentioned assembly. They were tried at the Cape, convicted of 
an attempt to raise an insurrection among the free people of color, 
and condemned to undergo the following penalty. After penance 
and confession in public, " they are to be taken to the ' Place 
oVArmes' and have their arms, legs, thighs and ribs broken alive, 
upon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and placed by the execu- 
tioner on wheels with their faces turned towards heaven, there to 
remain as long as it shall please God to preserve life ; after this, 
their heads to be severed from their bodies and exposed on stakes, 
and their goods confiscated &c."* " By this barbarous massacre," 
says Dr. J. Brown, " the breach between these two races " (they were 
distinct castes, not races) " were made irreconcilable." And at the 
time of this execution, March 9, 1791, the slaves were 'perfectly quiet. 

The arrest and murder of Oje were illegal and highly impolitic. 
The laws and usage of the colony vested the power of life and 
death in the governor.! The sanction of this functionary was 
neither sought nor obtained by the colonial assembly of the Cape, 
who, themselves in a state of rebellion, and without any legal right 
had ordered the execution of Oje, .for the simple reason that he 
demanded the rights which had been granted to him by the Home 
Government. But this execution was in the extreme impolitic as 
well as unlawful : for the massacre of Oje alienated a class of peo- 

* Brown, vol. 1, page 160. f Brown, vol. 1, page 108. 



DECREE OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 13 

pie who constituted the only effectual means — an acclimated sol- 
diery — by which an insurrection of the slaves could successfully 
be resisted. 

The account of the arrest and murder of Oje created intense ex- 
citement in Paris. And in May, 1791, the National Assembly of 
France began the discussion of the rights of the free colored popu- 
lation of the colonies. The claims of these people for equal privi- 
leges were maintained by some men not unknown to fame. The 
illustrious friend of Washington had recently returned to France, 
his brows laden with laurels won in the American Revolution. He 
certainly was able rightly to estimate free colored men, having been 
an eye witness whilst such men proved themselves soldiers and 
patriots in the times "that tried men's souls." 

Laden with such experience, and with the then enlightened poli- 
cy of the American example — which had not yet been obscured by 
the scum of petit blancs from Europe — Lafayette arose in his place 
in the National Assembly and exclaimed, " After the decree of the 
National Assembly of France, I believe it to be clear that free men, 
proprietors, cultivators and tax-payers, are citizens ! But men of 
color are proprietors, cultivators and tax-payers, — are they men ? 
For my part I deem them such, and it is to express this opinion 
that I rose to speak." 

In consequence of such reasoning, the National Assembly, May 
15th, 1791, decreed that " all people of color, residing in the French 
colonies, and born of free parents, were entitled to all the privileges 
of French citizenship, and among others, the right of voting at 
elections, and of holding a seat in the Colonial Assemblies." 

This decree, had it been adopted in the colony, would have ter- 
minated all its intestine commotions, and even the slaves would have 
continued quiet; for the sight of freedmen enjoying, as in former 
days, all the rights of citizenship, would have opened to their view 
a legitimate aim for their ambition, and a tangible object to which 
they might peaceably devote their energies. But the decree served 
only to excite the malignity of caste. The whites heard of it with 
execrations, and took a solemn oath to resist it by force of arms.* 
In consequence of this determination, the Governor, Blancheland, 

* Brown > vol. 1, page 169. 



14 REVOLT OF THE SLAVES. 

declared that he would defer the enforcement of the decree until 
the moment when it should be officially communicated to him, and 
immediately summoned a Colonial Assembly on the old basis, from 
which colored persons were excluded. 

Whilst the planters had left their estates to attend this Assembly 
at the Cape, a report spread over the island, particularly among 
the slaves, that the Governor and Assembly were withholding the 
execution of the liberal decrees of the home government. And at 
this critical moment the petit blancs, who were overseers, left in the 
sole sway over the slaves, " in honest zeal to guard against danger, 
or with a recklessness of purpose truly diabolical, were more than 
ever lavish of their cruelty to the slaves, and of their insults and put- 
rage towards the free colored people."* M Under pretence, or with a 
real design to watch over public safety, patroles were on constant 
duty, traversing the plantations, and penetrating by night the cabins 
of the negroes to search for indications of the suspected insurrection. 
The astonished slave, who had for a long time shamed his betters by 
continuing in peace to follow the routine of his industry, now sought 
to learn the causes of this inquietude, and became every day more 
filled with amazement and an undefined restlessness."! 

Under this extraordinary concurrence of exciting causes, after 
an adequate initiation, and two years' instruction in the orgies of 
rebellion and revolution, by which their masters had been conquer- 
ed and trampled upon by a mob whom they held in utter con- 
tempt ; whilst the earth yet reeked with the blood of the martyred 
Vincent Oje, and whilst their own blood freely followed the lash 
inflicted on them for the yet imagined crime of contemplating an 
insurrection, such were the circumstances under which the slaves 
first manifested a disposition to revolt. 

In the course of June and July, 1791, some insurrectionary 
movements took place among the slaves about Port au Prince, 
which were easily checked. Fifty were beheaded on one planta- 
tion, (Aubry,) and their heads affixed upon poles set along the 
hedges in imitation of palm-trees. 

So deeply enlisted were the passions of the white colonists in 
giving vent to their prejudice against the free colored people, that 

* Brown, vol. 1, page 172. f Brown, page 171. 



REVOLT OF TIIE SLAVES. 15 

their precautionary measures ended with simply arresting this re- 
volt. In the words of Mirabeau, " The colonists slept upon a Ve- 
suvius, nor were they awakened by the first jets of its eruption." 
And we should remark that in their massacre of one another, of 
Vincent Oje, and of the fifty slaves beheaded on the plantation Au- 
bry, the whites had distinctly intimated the kind of resistance which 
alone could be effectual against them. 

On the 20th August, 1791, an insurrection broke out on the 
plantation Gallifet,* which was easily quelled. But again were the 
whites satisfied with merely punishing the few immediately con- 
nected with the disturbance, but they neglected to make any effort 
to trace out and prevent further movements. 

On the 23d August the insurrection T)roke out in all its fury in 
the plain of the Cape, one third of which in four days was reduced 
to a heap of ashes, and nearly all the whites who fell into the 
hands of the insurgents were massacred without distinction of age 
or sex. 

Be it remembered that this insurrection was the legitimate fruit 
ci slavery, against which it was a spontaneous rebellion. It was 
not, therefore, the fruit of emancipation, but the consequence of 
withholding from men their liberty. 

In the meantime the Colonial Assembly met at the Cape, and, 
refusing to send an official account of the insurrection to France, 
strove to drag the Governor into the same policy, and through 
their president, opened a correspondence with the Governor of Ja- 
maica, from whom, in preference to the mother country, they sought 
succor. This was, on the part of the Assembly, a virtual declara- 
tion of independence ; and taking advantage of this circumstance, 
the insurgent slaves declared themselves in arms to support the 
cause of Louis XVI ! 

In the conflict which ensued, both the planters and the revolters 
paraded the corses of their prisoners before their respective camps. 
The self-emancipated slaves were the first to relent in cruelty, and 
one of their leaders, Jeannot, was shot by them beneath the instru- 
ments of torture which he had erected for his prisoners. This 

* The overseers on this estate were so cruel as to v render a constant purchase of 
new hands necessary." Edinburgh Review, vol. 8, page 57, 



\Q ELVOLT OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 

Jeannot was one of the guides, who, one year before, had led the 
army of 3,000 strong in the search after insurrection. The leaders 
who remained were Jean Francois, who called himself Grand Ad- 
miral of France, and his lieutenant Biassou, who assumed the title 
of Generalissimo of the conquered country. Under these chiefs 
the insurgents were speedily organized. 

Against the fearful odds in numbers which the slaves offered, the 
Governor, Blancheland, struggled with fettered arms : for the Co- 
lonial Assembly, in the spirit of its prototype, perplexed by their 
complaints and commands his every movement. "It "was compu- 
ted that within two months after the revolt began, upwards of 
2,000 white persons had been massacred; that 180 sugar planta- 
tions, and about 900 coffee, cotton and indigo settlements had been 
destroyed; (the buildings thereon being consumed by fire;) and 
1,200 christian families reduced from opulence to such a state of 
misery as to depend altogether for their clothing and sustenance 
on public and private charity. Of the insurgents it was reckoned 
that 2,000 had perished by the sword or by famine, an4 some hun- 
dreds by the hands of the executioner."* 

In the meantime, the free colored people, who owned nearly all 
the south-western section of the island, organized a force, aided by 
600 maroons, to assert and maintain their rights. They assembled at 
Croix de Bosquets, about thirty miles from Porte au Prince. Twice 
defeated in the attempt to subdue them, the Assembly at Port au 
Prince, on the 23d October, 1791, made with the free colored men 
in arms a concordat, granting them all the privileges — equal rights 
— accorded to them by the National Assembly in the decree of 
1 5th May. Here, therefore, was an entire abolition, by law, of one of 
the forms of caste. But these free colored men, as soon as their 
own rights were secured, forgot the claims of their humble allies 
the maroons. These last ivere given up by their companions in arms 
to the tender mercies of the white planters, who butchered some of 
them in cold blood, and purposely suffered the rest to starve to 
death, f 

This circumstance sank deeply into the minds of the slavgs 



* Quarterly Review, No. XLII, page 438. 
j Quarterly Review, No. XLII, page 438. 



PROCLAMATION OP FREEDOM. 17 

throughout the colony. At this time, in the same section, (the 
south-western,) the planters, both colored and white, placed in the 
enjoyment of equal privileges, by their combination maintained 
slavery in the south, whilst the slaves held entire possession of the 
plains of the north. The reason is plain, one form of caste had 
been abolished in the southern, whilst it maintained all its bitter- 
ness in the northern part of the colony. 

In 1792, the National Assembly of France sent Polverel and San- 
thonax as Commissioners to this colony, having furnished them 
with a force of 8,000 picked men. On their arrival at the Cape, 
they sent back to France, as state prisoners, Governor Blanche- 
land and his successor Desparbes. In 1793, the next Governor, 
Galbaud, having been thrown into prison by the Commissioners, 
for a similar fate, his brother, "a man of spirit and enterprise, 
gained over the militia, (petit blancs.) landed twelve hundred seamen, 
and being joined by a considerable number of volunteers, attacked 
the government-house, where the Commissioners were assembled 
under the protection of the regular troops and the men of color."* 

In the conflict which ensued, not considering their forces sufficient 
to repel their opponents, the Commissioners dispatched agents to ob- 
tain assistance from the revolted slaves, offering an unconditional par- 
don for the past, perfect freedom in future, and the plunder of 
the city /"f This offer of plunder was rejected by Jean Francois and 
Biassou. But, after several days, on the 21st June, Macaya, a chief, 
with 3,000 men, entered the town of the Cape, and, in accordance with 
the invitation of the Commissioners, pillaged and burnt the town, and 
slaughtered as many of the inhabitants as they found in arms against 
the Commissioners. At their approach, thousands of the inhabitants 
fled towards the ships, where they were met by their recent foes the 
free colored men, who avenging their, own wrongs and the murder of 
Vincent Oje, massacred as many as fell in their way. A large pro- 
portion of the fugitives reached the ships, and many of them emigrated 
to these United States ; and from their lips came the now traditional 

* Quarterly Review No. XLII, page 439. 

f The plunder of the town had already commenced ; for the sailors brought to sub- 
due the commissioners, had abandoned themselves to drunkenness, and then began to 
pillage and commit excesses which terrified the inhabitants. Brown, vol. 1, page 247. 



18 THE SECOND REVOLUTION. 

views entertained in this country, concerning the " Horrors of Emanci- 
pation in St. Domingo ;" i. e. that the first use of their liberty made 
by the slaves, was, ruthlessly to imbrue their hands in their former 
masters' blood. Is this tradition true '! Certainly not. For at the very 
moment, and for some time before the Commissioners declared them 
emancipated, there were in the plain of the Cape upwards of 100,000 
people who held their freedom and the soil by force of arms, a title 
as good as, because identical with, that by which the planters had 
held it in their possession. 

To these 100,000 people a proposal is made to pillage and sack a 
splendid and wealthy city ; after considerable delay 3,000 or -^ part 
of the whole number, accepting the proposition, march into the city. 
And as the massacre of the whites was the act of the free colored 
people, it must be attributed to the curse of caste, which, by causing 
the whites to murder Oje, now brought upon them the deadly revenge 
of the class with whom he was identified. The massacre, therefore, 
was not the consequence of emancipation, because it was not the act 
of the emancipated slaves. And the sole charge which remains 
against these last, is the plunder of the city, an act which the most 
civilized armies of the time would, under like circumstances, have 
perpetrated ; and which was the legitimate fruit of war in its generic 
sense. 

We are now arrived at the conclusion of the second revolution, name- 
ly, " The Emancipation of the Slaves." This revolution presents a 
pure example of a servile war. It originated amongst the slaves, who 
were urged by their sufferings to battle for liberty. Servile wars have 
generally proved the most tierce and sanguinary of all wars. But if 
we compare this one with others of the same class, we find it distin- 
guished for the small number of lives lost, especially on the part of the 
masters. In the servile war of Italy, 71 years before the christian era, 
Spartacus, at the head of 10,000 slaves, slew 40,000 Roman soldiers 
in all, and his resistance only ended with his life. In the servile war 
of Hayti, only 2,000 whites were slain by the insurgents, who number- 
ed 40,000 fighting men, and of whom nearly 10 : 000 were slain by the 
whites. 

The Thikd Revolution, which terminated in the independence 
of the colony, was not completed until ten years afterwards, 1802. 



TOUSSAINT i/oUVERTURE. ' 19 

The intervening time was distinguished by a series of events which 
formed a pleasing contrast to the war Ave have narrated — events over 
which Toussaint L'Ouverture became the presiding genius. 

Whilst the orgies of the French revolution thrust forward a being 
whose path was by rivers of blood, the horrors of St. Domingo pro- 
duced one who was pre-eminently a peace-maker. 

In estimating the character of Toussaint, regard must be paid, not 
to the enlightened age in which he lived, but to the rank in society 
from which he sprang — a rank which must be classed with a remote 
and elementary age of mankind. 

Born forty-seven years before the commencement of the revolt, he 
had reached the prime of manhood, a slave, with a soul uncontami- 
nated by the degradation which surrounded him. Living in a state of 
society where worse than polygamy was actually urged, we find him 
at this period faithful to one wife — the wife of his youth — and the 
father of an interesting family. Linked with such tender ties, and en- 
lightened with some degree of education, which his indulgent master, 
M. Bayou, had given him, he fulfilled, up to the moment of the revolt, 
the duties of a christian man in slavery. 

At the time of the insurrection — in which he took no part — he con- 
tinued in the peaceable discharge of his duties as coachman ; and 
when the insurgents approached the estate whereon he lived, he ac- 
complished the flight of M. Bayou, whose kind treatment (part of 
this kindness teas teaching this slave to read and write) he repaid by 
forwarding to him produce for his maintenance while in exile in these 
United States. 

Having thus faithfully acquitted himself as a slave, he turned to- 
wards the higher destinies which awaited him as a freeman. With a 
mind stored with patient reflection upon the biographies of men, the 
most eminent in civil and military affairs; and deeply versed in the his- 
tory of the most remarkable revolutions that had yet occurred amongst 
mankind, he entered the army of the insurgents under Jean Francois. 
This chief rapidly promoted him to the offices of physician to the 
forces, aid-de-camp, and colonel. 

Jean Francois, in alliance with the Spaniards, maintained war at 
this time for the cause of royalty. 

Whilst serving under this chief, Toussaint beheld another civil war 



20 GENERAL LAVEAUX. 

agitating the French colony. On one side, the French Commission- 
ers, who had acknowledged the emancipation of the slaves, maintained 
war for the Republic ; on the other side, the old noblesse, or planters, 
fought under the royal banner, having called in the aid of the British 
forces in order to re-establish slavery and the Ancient Regime.* 

In this conflict, unmindful of their solemn oaths against the decree 
of 15th May, '91, the whites of both parties, including the planters, 
hesitated not to fight in the same ranks, shoulder to shoulder, with the 
blacks. Caste id as forgotten in the struggle for principles ! 

At this juncture Jean Francois, accompanied by his principal offi- 
cers, and possessed of all the honors and emoluments of a eaptain- 
general in the service of his Catholic Majesty, retired to Spain, leav- 
ing Toussaint at liberty to choose his party. Almost immediately join- 
ing that standard which acknowledged and battled for equal rights to 
all men, he soon rendered signal service to the Commissioners, by dri- 
ving the Spaniards from the northern, and by holding the British at 
bay in the eastern part of the island. For these services he was 
raised to the rank of general, by the French commander at Porte aux 
Paix, General Laveaux : a promotion which he soon repaid by saving 
that veteran's life under the following circumstances : Villate, a mulat- 
to general, envious of the honors bestowed on Toussaint, treacherously 
imprisoned General Laveaux in Cape Francois. Immediately upon 
hearing this fact, Toussaint hastened to the Cape at the head of 
10,000 men and liberated his benefactor. And, at the very moment of 
his liberation, a commission arrived from France appointing General 
Laveaux Governor of the Colony ; his first official act was to pro- 
claim Toussaint his lieutenant. " This is the black," said Laveaux, 
" predicted by Raynal, and who is destined to avenge the outrages 
committed against his whole race." A remark soon verified, for on 
his attainment of the supreme power, Toussaint avenged those injuries 
— by forgiveness. 

As an acknowledgment for his eminent services against the British, 
and against the mulattoes, who, inflamed with all the bitterness of 
caste, had maintained a sanguinary war under their great leader 
Rigaud, in the southern part of the colony, the Commissioners in- 

* History of St. Domingo, page 114, republished by Mahlon Day, New-York, 1824. 



GENERAL MAITLAND. 21 

vested Toussaint with the office and dignity of general-in-chief of St. 
Domingo. 

From that moment began the full development of the vast and ver- 
satile genius of this extraordinary man. Standing amid the terrible, 
because hostile, fragments of two revolutions, harassed by the rapa- 
cious greed of commissioners upon commissioners, who, successive- 
ly dispatched from France, hid beneath a republican exterior a longing- 
after the spoils ; with an army in the field accustomed by five years' 
experience to all the license of civil war, Toussaint, with a giant hand, 
seized the reins of government, reduced these conflicting elements to 
harmony and order, and raised the colony to nearly its former prosperity. 

Sending his children to the French directory, at once as hostages 
for his good conduct and as pupils for education, he received the com- 
missioners sent out by that body with respect; but, so soon as he 
found them likely to mar his own policy, he politely and skilfully pro- 
cured their absence from the colony. His lofty intellect always de- 
lighting to effect its object rather by the tangled mazes of diplomacy, 
than by the strong arm of physical force, yet maintaining a steadfast 
and unimpeached adherence to truth, his word and his honor. 

General Maitland, commander of the British forces, finding the re- 
duction of the island to be utterly hopeless, signed a treaty with Tous- 
saint for the evacuation of all the posts which he held. "Toussaint 
then paid him a visit, and was received with military honors. After 
partaking of a grand entertainment, he was presented by General Mait- 
land, in the name of His Majesty, with a splendid service of plate, and 
put in possession of the government-house which had been built and 
furnished by the English. 

" General Maitland, previous to the disembarkation of the troops, 
returned the visit at Toussaint' s camp ; and such was his confidence 
in the integrity of his character, that he proceeded through a considera- 
ble extent of country full of armed negroes, with only three attendants. 
Roume, the French commissioner, wrote a letter to Toussaint on this 
occasion, advising him to seize his guest as an act of duty to the Re- 
public : on the route General Maitland was secretly informed of 
Roume's treachery, but in full reliance on the honor of Toussaint, he 
determined to proceed. On arriving at head quarters, he was desired 
to wait. It was some time before Toussaint made his appearance ; at 



22 RETURN OF THE PLANTERS 

length, however, he entered the room with two open letters in his hand. 
' There, general,' said he, 'before we talk together, read these ; one is 
a letter from the French commissary — the other is my answer. I could 
not see you till I had written my reply, that you might be satisfied how 
safe you were with me, and how incapable I am of baseness.' "* 

Buonaparte, on becoming First Consul, sent out the confirmation of 
Toussaint as commander-in-chief, who, with views infinitely beyond 
the short-sighted and selfish vision of the Commissioners, proclaimed a 
general amnesty to the planters who had fled during the revolutions, 
earnestly invited their return to the possession of their estates, and, 
with a delicate regard to their feelings, decreed that the epithet emi- 
grant should not be applied to them. Many of the planters accepted 
the invitation, and returned to the peaceful possession of their estates. 

In regard to the army of Toussaint, Gen. Lacroix, one of the plant- 
ers who returned, affirms " that never was an European army subject- 
ed to a more rigid discipline than that which was observed by the troops 
of Toussaint." Yet this army was converted by the commander-in- 
chief into industrious laborers, by the simple expedient of paying them 
for their labor. " When he restored many of the planters to their es- 
tates, there was no restoration of their former property in human beings. 
No human being was to be bought or sold. Severe tasks, flagellations, 
and scanty food, w r ere no longer to be endured. The planters were 
obliged to employ their laborers on the footing of hired servants."! 
"And under this system," says Lacroix, "the colony advanced, as if 
by enchantment, towards its ancient splendor ; cultivation was extended 
with such rapidity that every day made its progress more perceptible. 
All appeared to be happy, and regarded Toussaint as their guardian an- 
gel. In making a tour of the island, he was hailed by the blacks with 
universal joy, nor was he less a favorite of the whites." 

Toussaint, having effected a bloodless conquest of the Spanish ter- 
ritory, had now become commander of the entire island. Performing 
all the executive duties, he made laws to suit the exigency of the times. 
His Egeria was temperance accompanied with a constant activity of 
body and mind. 

The best proof of the entire success of his government is contained 

♦ Quart. Review, No. 42, p. 442, 443. 

t History of St. Domingo, p. 118. published by Mahlon Day, New-York, 1824. 



TO ENJOY THE FRUITS OF FREEDOM. 



23 



in the comparative views of the exports of the island, before the revo- 
lutions, and during the administration of Toussaint. Bearing in mind 
that, " before the revolution there were 450,000 slave laborers working 
with a capital in the shape of buildings, mills, fixtures and implements, 
which had been accumulating during a century. Under Toussaint there 
were 290,000 free laborers, many of them just from the army or the 
mountains, working on plantations that had undergone the devastation of 
insurrection and a seven years' war."* 



Average exports from the French part of 
Hayti, before the Revolution.^ 

Sugar, . . . 145,192,043 pounds. 
Coffee, .... 71,663,183 do. 
Cotton, .... 6,698,858 do. 

Indigo, 951,607 do. 

Molasses, .... 23,061 hhds. 
Taffia, (a sort of rum,) . 2,600 do. 



Exports in one year under Tous- 
saint. 



Sugar, . . 


. 53,400,000 pounds 


Coffee, . . 


. 34,370,000 do. 


Cotton, . . 


4,050,000 do. 


Indigo, . . 


. . 37,600 do. 


Molasses, 


. . .9,128 hhds. 







"Another beneficial consequence of the new order of things was 
visible in the state of the population. While in Jamaica and the other 
West India islands, in the midst of peace and plenty, there was a con- 
stant diminution among the negroes, and the merchants and planters 
were confidently affirming the impossibility of keeping up their numbers 
without annual importations from Africa ; in St. Domingo, on the con- 
trary, such was the salutary result of the more moderate labors of the 
men, and the rest enjoyed (when required) by women, that the same 
race of people had considerably increased, in spite of war both 
foreign and civil, of frequent massacres, and of all the wants and mise- 
ries thereon attendant.":}: 

Here is undeniable evidence, that the slavery of the time was 
more destructive of human life than the icars, insurrections, and massa- 
cres to which it gave birth ! For we have shown that slavery in this 
colony destroyed no less than 5,000 human beings per annum ! 

In consequence of the almost entire cessation of official communica- 
tion with France, and for other reasons equally good, Toussaint thought 

* Quart. Ant. Slav. Mag. vol. 1, p. 269. 

t The first of these tables was drawn up by Bryan Edwards ; the second is contained 
in Franklin's work on Hayti. 
1 History of St. Domingo, p. 119. 



24 END OF THE SECOND REVOLUTION. 

it necessary for the public welfare to frame a new constitution for the 
government of the island. With the aid of M. Pascal, Abbe Moliere, 
and Marinit, he drew up a constitution, and submitted the same to a 
General Assembly convened from every district, and by that assembly 
the constitution was adopted. It was subsequently promulgated in the 
name of the people. And, on the 1st July, 1801, the island was de- 
clared to be an independent State, in which all men, without re- 
gard to complexion or creed, possessed equal rights. 

This proceeding was subsequently sanctioned by Napoleon Buonaparte, 
whilst First Consul. In a letter to Toussaint, he says, "We have 
conceived for you esteem, and we wish to recognize and proclaim the 
great services you have rendered the French people. If their colors 
fly on St. Domingo, it is to you and your brave blacks that we owe it. 
Called by your talents and the force of circumstances to the chief 
command, you have terminated the civil war, put a stop to the persecu- 
tions of some ferocious men, and restored to honor the religion and the 
worship of God, from whom all things come. The situation in which 
your were placed, surrounded on all sides by enemies, and without the 
mother country being able to succor or sustain you, has rendered legiti- 
mate the articles of that constitution."* 

Although Toussaint enforced the duties of religion, he entirely severed 
the connection between church and state. He rigidly enforced all the 
duties of morality, and would not suffer in his presence even the ap- 
proach to indecency of dress or manner. "Modesty," said he, "is the 
defence of woman." 

The chief, nay the idol of an army of 100,000 well-trained and ac- 
climated troops ready to march or sail where he wist, Toussaint refrain- 
ed raising the standard of liberty in any one of the neighboring islands, 
at a time when, had he been fired with what men term ambition, he 
could easily have revolutionized the entire Archipelago of the west. 
But his thoughts were bent on conquest of another kind ; he was deter- 
mined to overthrow an error which designing and interested men had 
craftily instilled into the civilized world, a belief in the natural inferiority 
of the negro race. It was the glory and the warrantable boast of Toussaint, 
that he had been the instrument of demonstrating that, even with the 
worst odds against them, this race is entirely capable of achieving liberty. 

* History of St Domingo, p. 140. 



THE THIRD REVOLUTION. 25 

and of self-government. He did more : by abolishing caste he prov- 
ed the artificial nature of such distinctions, and further demonstrated 
that even slavery cannot unfit men for the full exercise of all the func- 
tions which belong to free citizens. 

" Some situations of trust were filled bv free negroes and rnu- 

- o 

lattoes, who had been in respectable circumstances under the old 
government ; but others were occupied by negroes, and even by 
Africans, who had recently emerged from the lowest condition of 
slavery."* 

But the bright and happy state of things which the genius of Tous" 
saint had almost created out of elements the most discordant, was 
doomed to be of short duration. For the dark spirit of Napoleon, glutted, 
but not satiated with the gory banquet afforded at the expense of Europe 
and Africa, seized upon this, the most beautiful and happy of the Hes- 
perides, as the next victim of its remorseless rapacity. 

With the double intention of getting rid of the republican army, and 
reducing back to slavery the island of Hayti, he sent out his brother-in- 
law, Gen. Leclerc, with 26 ships of war and 25,000 men. 

Like Leonidas at Thermopylas, or the Bruce at Bannockburn, Tous- 
saint determined to defend from thraldom his sea-girt isle, made sacred to 
liberty by the baptism of blood. 

On the 28th January, 1802, Leclerc arrived off the bay of Samana, 
from the promontory of which Toussaint, in anxious alarm, beheld for the 
first time in his life so large an armament. "We must all perish," said 
he, " all France has come to St. Domingo !" But this despondency 
passed away in a moment, and then this man, who had been a kindly- 
treated slave, prepared to oppose to the last that system which he now 
considered worse than death. 

It is impossible, after so long a tax on your patience, to enter on a de- 
tailed narration of the conflict which ensued. The hour of trial served 
only to develope and ennoble the character of Toussaint, who rose, with 
misfortune, above the allurements of rank and wealth which were offered 
as the price of his submission ; and the very ties of parental love he yield- 
ed to the loftier sentiment of patriotism.! 

On the 2d February, a division of Leclerc's army, commanded by 

* History of St. Domingo, page 120. 
t Vide History of St. Domingo, page 142. 



26 TREACHERY OF LECLERC. 

General Rochambeau, an old planter, landed at Fort Dauphin, and 
ruthlessly murdered many of the inhabitants, (freedmen,) who, unarmed, 
had been led by curiosity to the beach, in order to witness the disem- 
barkation of the troops. 

Christophe,* one of the generals of Toussaint, commanding at Cape 
Francois, having resisted the menaces and the flattery of Leclerc, re- 
duced that ill-fated town to ashes, and retired with his troops into the 
mountains, carrying with him 2,000 of the white inhabitants of the 
Cape, who were protected from injury during the fierce war which en- 
sued. (Hist. p. 134.) 

Having full possession of the plain of the Cape, Leclerc, with a 
proclamation of liberty in his hand, in March following re-established 
slavery with all its former cruelties. 

This treacherous movement thickened the ranks of Toussaint, who 
thenceforward so vigorously pressed his opponent, that as a last resort, 
Leclerc broke the shackles of the slave, and proclaimed " Liberty and 
Equality to all the inhabitants of St. Domingo." 

This proclamation terminated the conflict for the time. Christophe 
and Dessalines, general officers, and at length Toussaint himself, capitu- 
lated, and, giving up the command of the island to Leclerc, he retired, 
at the suggestion of that officer, to enjoy rest and the sweet endear- 
ments of his family circle, on one of his estates near Gonaives. At 
this place he had remained about one month, when, without any ade- 
quate cause, Leclerc eaused him to be seized, and to be placed on 
board of a ship of war, in which he was conveyed to France, where, 
without trial or condemnation, he was imprisoned in a loathsome and 
unhealthy dungeon. f Unaccustomed to the chill and damp of this 
prison-house, the aged frame of Toussaint gave way, and he died. 

In this meagre outline of his life I have presented simply facts, 
gleaned, for the most part, from the unwilling testimony of his 
foes, and therefore resting on good authority. The highest enco- 
mium on his character is contained in the fact, that Napoleon be- 
lieved that by capturing him he would be able to re-enslave Hayti ; 
and even this encomium is, if possible, rendered higher by the cir- 

* Vide History, p. 130, for his noble and spirited reply to Leclerc. 
t First at Joux in Normandy, and afterwards to his " sepulchre," Besancon, 
Quarterly Review, No. XLII. page 447. 



THE THIRD REVOLUTION* 27 

cumstances which afterward transpired, which showed that his 
principles were so thoroughly disseminated among his brethren, 
that, without the presence of Toussaint, they achieved that liberty 
which he had taught them so rightly to estimate. 

The capture of Toussaint spread like wild-fire through the 
island, and his principal officers again took the field. A fierce and 
sanguinary war ensued, in which the French gratuitously inflicted 
the most awful cruelties on their prisoners, many of whom having 
been hunted with blood-hounds, were carried in ships to some dis- 
tance from the shore, murdered in cold blood, and cast into the 
sea ; their corses were thrown by the waves back upon the beach, 
and filled the air with pestilence, by which the French troops per- 
ished in large numbers. Leclerc having perished by pestilence, his 
successor, Rochambeau, when the conquest of the island was be- 
yond possibility, became the cruel perpetrator of these bloody deeds. 

Thus it will be perceived that treachery and massacre were be- 
gun on the side of the French. I place emphasis on these facts in 
order to endeavor to disabuse the public mind of an attempt to at- 
tribute to emancipation the acts of retaliation resorted to by the 
Haytians in imitation of what the enlightened French had taught 
them. In two daily papers of this city there were published, a year 
since, a series of articles entitled the " Massacres of St. Domingo." 

The " massacres " are not attributable to emancipation, for we 
have proved otherwise in regard to the first of them. The other 
occurred in 1804, twelve years after the slaves had disenthralled 
themselves. Fearful as the latter may have been, it did not equal 
the atrocities previously committed on the Haytians by the French. 
And the massacre was restricted to the white French inhabitants, 
whom Dessalines, the Robespierre of the island, suspected of an 
attempt to bring back slavery, with the aid of a French force yet 
hovering in the neighborhood. 

And if we search for the cause of this massacre, we may trace 
it to the following source : Nations which are pleased to term them- 
selves civilized, have one sort of faith which they hold to one an- 
other, and another sort which they entertain towards people less 
advanced in refinement. The faith which they entertain towards 
the latter, is, very often, treachery, in the vocabulary of the civi- 
lized. It was treachery towards Toussaint that caused the massa- 



28 CONCLUSION. 

ere of St. Domingo ; it was treachery towards Osceola that brought 
blood-hounds into Florida ! 

General Rochambeau, with the remnant of the French army, 
having been reduced to the dread necessity of striving "to appease 
the calls of hunger by feeding on horses, mules, and the very dogs 
that had been employed in hunting down and devouring the ne- 
groes,"* evacuated the island in the autumn of 1803, and Hayti 
thenceforward became an independent state. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have now laid before you a concise 
view of the revolutions of Hayti in the relation of cause and effect ; 
and I trust you will now think, that, so far from being scenes 
of indiscriminate massacre from which we should turn our eyes 
in horror, these revolutions constitute an epoch worthy of the 
anxious study of every American citizen. 

Among the many lessons that may be drawn from this portion 
of history, is one not unconnected with the present occasion. From 
causes to which I need not give a name, there is gradually creep- 
ing into our otherwise prosperous state, the incongruous and un- 
dermining influence of caste. One of the local manifestations of 
this unrepublican sentiment, is, that while 800 children, chiefly of 
foreign parents, are educated and taught trades at the expense of 
all the citizens, colored children are excluded from these privileges. 

With the view to obviate the evils of such an unreasonable pro- 
scription, a few ladies of this city, by their untiring exertions, have 
organized an " Asylum for Colored Orphans." Their zeal in this 
cause is infinitely beyond all praise of mine, for their deeds of 
mercy are smiled on by Him who has declared, that " Whosoever 
shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water, 
shall in no wise lose her reward." Were any further argument 
needed to urge them on in their blessed work, I would point out 
to them the revolutions of Hayti, where, in the midst of the orgies 
and incantations of servile war, there appeared, as a spirit of peace, 
the patriot, the father, the benefactor of mankind — Toussaint 

L'OUVERTURE, A FREEDMAN, WHO HAD BEEN TAUGHT TO READ 
WHILE IN SLAVERY ! 

* Quart. Review, No. XLII. p. 449. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




